1. The Smile Curve and a tail of three companies



1.2 The Smile Curve


Source: Baldwin et al. (2014) https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/events/14121101/pdf/baldwin.pdf


1.2 A tail of three companies




  • Pensonic (Malaysia)

    • Established in 1965 (electronics from 1980s)

    • Products: lightning, refrigerator…

    • Major local and (regional) brand

      Source: Company’s history https://www.pensonic.com/



2. MNE-led industrialzation made possible with fragmentation



2.1 Decreasing transport, communication costs and unbundling of economic activities



Source: Baldwin (20011). Images/icons are from wikimedia commons. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17716/w17716.pdf



2.2 Fragmention and MNE-led industrialization



Source: Kimura and Obashi (2011) https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/156175/adbi-wp320.pdf

3. What MNE can and cannot do?

  • Providing large scale empoloyment -> push up the bottom

  • Industrialization? but that is not a mission of private companies